Thanks Be to God

​Our Gospel reading for this morning describes a pair of miracles. While Jesus was on his way to help Jairus’ daughter, a woman touched him and was healed of her hemorrhages. That’s miracle one. Jesus continued to Jairus’ home, where he raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead for miracle two.
 
Both are impressive displays of divine power. But as was true last week, I am drawn to the reactions of the people who experienced the miracles.
 
The Gospel writers don’t normally tell us much about how people reacted to being healed, and these stories are no exception. The healed woman was afraid that she may have done something wrong when she touched Jesus. The girl’s parents were overcome with amazement. But that’s all we get. I’d love to know more.
 
As most of you probably know, The Chosen is a series dramatizing Jesus’ life, which we are watching here at Saint David’s. A group of us started season two earlier this week. Among the things I love about The Chosen is the way it portrays the different miracle stories, including the reactions of the people healed.
 
Usually, the person being healed has to process the miracle. They feel different, but at first they are afraid to believe that they are truly healed. Then it sinks in, as they feel new strength in their legs if they were lame, or hear or see for the first time, or whatever. At that point, the healed person starts jumping around, shouting with joy, and finally dashes off to share the good news with the people they love.
 
In one of my favorite scenes from The Chosen, Peter leans over to another disciple as Jesus begins to work on someone, and he whispers, “I love watching this.” I love it, too. It’s fun to see people overcome with joy and gratitude because Jesus has touched their lives.
 
And, although those parts of The Chosen are imaginative, it must have been something like that. Think what relief and joy the healed woman in our reading must have felt when she realized her hemorrhage had stopped, how grateful she must have been to Jesus for healing her. Surely she celebrated!
 
But what strikes me, as I imagine this woman celebrating her miraculous healing, is that she was grateful for what most of the people around her took for granted: not hemorrhaging. Because she had been sick, she appreciated her new health in a way that others mostly didn’t.
 
I have never experienced as dramatic a healing as the woman in our story. But I think about my own experience of recovering from sickness. Thankfully, I don’t get sick very often, but I’ve had COVID twice. Neither case was bad, but I was really tired both times.
 
After a day or two of being sick, I started to improve. And as I got better, but before I was fully recovered, I was jubilant. 
 
Even at the time, I realized my jubilation was a little odd. After all, I still wasn’t 100%. I was still weaker than normal. But on that day, as I began to recover from COVID, it was enough to not be totally exhausted. I celebrated, and I was grateful.
 
Today, too, as it happens, I am not totally exhausted. But today, not being exhausted just feels normal. Today, unfortunately, I’m inclined to take my basic physical well-being for granted. 
 
The same is true for me in every area of my life, not just my health. After I had written most of this very sermon, it disappeared on my computer. I had definitely saved it. But it was gone.
 
After a few minutes of searching, I gave up in despair and walked away. I knew I could recreate the work I had done. But I didn’t have time this week to be doing the same work twice.
 
And then, out of nowhere, in what I consider a minor miracle and a definite act of grace, I had a thought about what might have happened. I checked, and there was my sermon. The lost was found!
 
I had been working on my computer for much of the day without thinking anything of it. But in that moment, I was profoundly grateful for the fact that my computer did what it was supposed to do, what it had been doing all day.
 
Getting sick or having problems has a way of focusing us, making us appreciate what we had. And if things get better, then for a short time we are grateful for what we normally take for granted.
 
But wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to get sick or have problems first? Or if we could hold onto the joy and gratitude we feel in those moments? If we could truly feel grateful for the problems we don’t have? Or, to put it more positively, to truly feel grateful for the ordinary gifts we enjoy in our ordinary lives?
 
Our readings can help with that.
 
If we also put ourselves in the place of the healed person, we can share with them a moment of gratitude.
 
I have never hemorrhaged. I’ve never even thought about hemorrhaging. But when I imagine what the woman in our reading suffered, and how relieved she must have been, if I identify with her, then I, too, can celebrate not hemorrhaging. I can be grateful for the health that I have, such as it is, and that I mostly take for granted. That’s a great gift.
 
We can also take a step back. What is true for us as individuals is also true for us as a culture more broadly. We the people as a whole may well take things for granted until we are in danger of losing them. Probably we can all think of current examples.
 
But here is one. A social psychologist named Jonathan Haidt recently wrote a book about the rising levels of emotional distress among young people.[1] Haidt had theories about the causes and the solutions to the distress. I mostly found them persuasive.
 
But I was particularly struck by an interview Haidt gave to a late-night talk-show host. As he says in his book, Haidt is an atheist. The talk-show host also identified as an atheist. And he complained that Haidt’s book spoke about how helpful Church involvement could be for young people.
 
Haidt replied that the data was clear. Church involvement is good for young people. (Incidentally, I understand that the data is equally clear for adults.) So, Haidt went on, atheists like himself and his host needed somehow to replicate Church involvement for their children for their children’s own wellbeing. But without God.
 
I’m not sure how one replicates Church life without God. But what people like Haidt are realizing is how much is lost when people abandon Church. Some, at least, are coming to appreciate what they no longer have.
 
I have no idea how all this will play out for us as a culture. But it is another reminder to be grateful for the ordinary gifts of our ordinary lives, including the gift of each other, of our community of faith which, despite its many imperfections, helps to keep each of us on the right path.
 
And so I end with a word of gratitude for the many gifts in my life, and particularly for the gift of you, my brothers and sisters of Saint David’s, who do more than you know to sustain me and my relationship with God.
 
In Christ’s name. Amen. 


[1] Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024).